


You Breathe In But Can't Breathe Out

by DefaltManifesto



Series: Mad Max Kneeling 'Verse [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kneeling, Mental Instability, Platonic Kneeling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:44:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4325433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Max feels like the world is strangling him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Breathe In But Can't Breathe Out

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a two part series, the first of which is written by me and the second of which will be written by scepticallyopenminded. Partially inspired by the hockey fandom's obsession with the kneeling 'verse, an obsession which I also share. 
> 
> Title taken from Open Up by Korn. 
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated. 
> 
> I have another fic planned eventually about Coma, but I'm not sure when I'll write it.

[The tumblr](http://schizzar.tumblr.com)

 

Need is something Max learns early on is a weakness. Needing something leaves you open and desperate, willing to compromise morals for something that won't last you long enough to be worth it.   

Admittedly, Max knows his moral compass has been skewed. He lost it entirely while trapped in the Citadel, but since Furiosa, he'd slowly reclaimed it. It's tenuous though, the hold he has on it. Sometimes he feels like it's slipping right through his fingers.

He's still not sure if needing to be a good man is a weakness.

He doesn't want to be what he was. This feels like his first shot to turn things around, to be what he was before everything went to hell.

He wants to do it alone, but he's not sure he can.

 

-.-

 

The first time he returns to the Citadel, it's mostly because he's passing through. He's almost attacked by the War Boys until a flare goes off from the Citadel to call them off. They're nicer to him now, if one can classify anything the War Boys do as nice. Max can't shake the memories of their hands all over him, stealing his blood and his strength, so all he manages are a few coherent noises as they lead him in.

Capable greets him at the lift, her hair cropped short enough he wouldn't recognize her if not for the color. She talks to him. Max can't concentrate long enough to formulate a response, so he just nods as she leads him through the twisting halls until they reach a mostly empty room.

There's a desk, a chair, and a halfway full bookcase. More importantly, there's Furiosa, scrawling something out on a scroll of stretched linen. When she looks up, Max can't help but feel small. All the broken pieces he's carefully put together seem to quake before her.

"Max," she says, almost a question and almost a warning, like she can see him teetering on the edge of something big, something awful. Like if he tips over, she'll put a bullet through his head.

"Can I?" he asks, voice rough from disuse as he gestures at the empty space beside her chair.

She gives a nod, like she knows what he's asking for even though he can't quite say it. He stumbles forward, hands grabbing the edge of the desk as he falls to his knees by her side facing away from the door. He doesn't want to see Capable. He doesn't want to see the disgust or the pity or _anything_ in her eyes.

He presses his cheek to Furiosa's outer thigh and for the first time in weeks, maybe months, he lets all the tension go. He goes limp against her.

He doesn't have to try and be a good man. She'll stop him if he ever tries to do anything bad here.

 

-.-

 

They don't talk about it.

Max shows up when he needs to and Furiosa accepts him for what he is.

Sometimes, if he can't quite settle, she reads what she's been filling the scrolls with. It's inventory of the crops, the water, the car parts, the few chickens they've managed to get their hands on and raise. It's all nonsense noise she fills his head with to calm him down.

 

-.-

 

Sometimes, Furiosa asks him to stay longer than he needs. He'll stay another hour or so, her metal hand clamped around the back of his neck to keep him perfectly still. He realizes that she needs just as much as he does.

With her though, it doesn't feel like weakness. She's still strong, stronger than anyone he's known in a long while. He's not sure how to hold the two things in his head at once.

Strength.

Need.

He's spent so long pushing them apart, he's not sure how to put them together.

 

-.-

 

He forgets.

Not all the time, but it happens. He does bad things because he's not a good man no matter how hard he tries.

He comes to Furiosa with blood on his hands. He kneels between her legs and cries against her stomach as he grips the back of her shirt and stains it red with the broken promise he made to himself. She doesn't ask him to explain. She just holds him close so the belts that guard her stomach dig into his cheeks like brands he wishes he could keep as a reminder.

He wants her to absolve him of his sins, but she can't.

He loves her because she never lies. She never promises more than she can give.

So he clings to her and whispers that he didn't mean to take an innocent man's life again.

She doesn't tell him it's okay. She doesn't forgive him.

But she doesn't push him away either and it feels like some sort of twisted absolution.

 

-.-

 

He never lets it get that bad again. He comes to the Citadel twice a month and kneels for hours, letting it center him, letting it remind him that he's done a good thing, that he can keep doing good things just as long as he remembers why.

Furiosa, and the society she's slowly rebuilding him, are physical reminders of what he can do. They're reminders that he can help others change the world, even if he isn't doing it himself.

He doesn't have to do it himself.

He's just one man.

He's just one man who needs to know he's not alone.

 

-.-

 

Max needs. It's a weakness, but he knows he's not ever going to be strong enough to escape something as base and simplistic as need.


End file.
